Wednesday, July 4, 2007

I still remember the dream of growing up when I was little was to become some kind of '家', either a scientist, a writer, or an artist. It seemed that anything with that word proved that you became an specialist in that area, and you were great. As getting older, this dream stays away from me further and further away. I don't know whether it is because i slowly realized that my potential is limited, or there is another kind of quiet and peaceful life becomes more apealling to me. It is interesting to see that there are little tiny things become touching and unforgettable to me. In any kind of situation, i start to learn to enjoy the process of my life.

It is amusing to realize at this time, being in Delft for one month, having lived in two places, we have already had experiences of locking ourselves out of our apartment once in each places. The first time is when we lived in the Orange street, when we went out for a walk after dinner, we found out that neither of us had a key. We went to the back of the apartment, hoping that we could somehow getting inside the backyard. We didn't lock the door to the backyard from inside, so it shouldn't be a problem after that. Mr. Awaara tried hard, but it seems hard to climb over. A guy biked passing us, and i stopped him asking for help. He thought for a second and asked us to wait. Guess what? he went to take a ladder for us! The other side of the wall, there was another ladder from the landlord. Mr. Awaara easily went inside and got our key. That is a nice guy. We later wondered a little bit that how could he believe that we were not thieves but tenants living there? Maybe we were just looking nice people :-)

The second experience was not that easy, and it could be seen as an adventure! It happened last Thursday night (Good that it is not Friday, you will know why) . Mr. Awaara picked up a cellphone on the way home from the office. Later the phone was called, and they were informed that it is lost and with us. The owner's son said he would come to pick it up. Later he called again saying he couldn't come right away because his office called him, so we decided to go to the grocery first. On the way back from the grocery, someone again called, and telling us that he was waiting outside of our building. We asked him to wait for twn minutes. Mr. Awaara went home to return the phone. I was hanging around in the campus, using the truphone to call my Mom since the wireless signal is better there.

A few minutes after I was talking with my sister on phone, Mr. Awaara came back, and I was not ready to hang up the phone. He waited for a few minutes, and started to talking to me. O O , I understood, he tried to tell me the key was locked inside! I soon hung up the phone with Yiling and i know this time it would be a bigger problem. We knew the landlady this time only have this only one key, and we are living here only through an informal arrangement. We have to ask her for help. She has to go to the housing office to get the key. It was already 9:30pm that time. I only have her number in my email, and good that we could go to Mr. Awaara's office. He has the office key in his pocket.

Using his office phone, we called our host. She said she didn't have similar experience after living there. She gave us another number to call to find out what will be the procedure. Then another call told us, there is no way to get it tonight only if you have to pay 50 euro. During office hours it is possible to get it. This is the reason that we were lucky to be in Thursday. The landlady sounds reluctant to help also because it is quite late. She suggested we went to her place to stay for a night. We were both not liking to bother others, so we said we could stay in the office for a night. In US, we both remember that Shane who later become a lecturer in the ENVD lived in the office for half a year. So a night is not a problem for us. There was another suggestion that we could try to hit the door, or using some card to open the door. Mr. Awaara decided to go back and try. I stay in case the building locks after 10:30pm and I could still open the door for him. We once left after 10:30 pm and the building alarm sounded, which is quite annoying. We saw the security car passed by, but they didn't know it was because of us. ok, at this moment it was 10 to 10pm.

It was 10:15pm, I called Mr. Awaara. He didn't succeed, so i asked him to come back.Around 10:25pm, his key is useless any more to open the building door and he rung the office phone from downstairs, so i ran out of his office to open the door for him. When I came to the ground floor, i heard the screaming sound of the alarm. We both ran back to the third floor his office. It was scary. What did we do wrong? maybe the door shouldn't open after 10:00pm?

We sat quietly in the office. Later we felt the alarm went off. Mr. Awaara went to the corridor to check. The second time he went back, telling me the alarm is on again! It seemed that every move of us would trigger the alarm. So we decided to face the police, it seems there is no way that we can safely stayed in the office without going to the toilet, or anywhere out of his office.

Around ten minutes later, three security person came. One short black lady, two guys one senior and the other younger. The lady started by saying, the building is closed at 10, and now it is 11 already, you can't not stay here any more. You have triggered the alarm twice. Please give me your ID... So Mr. Awaara handed his ID, and we were driven out of the building.

That time it was around 11:30pm. We had no ID with us, our room was locked. Those security people knew that we would be homeless if they drove us out of the office but they still did it. We couldn't go to a hotel, since we had no ID, and not even knowing where will the hotel be. There is only the last chance, our host. Good that she is a night person. We called her at the rate of 25 eurocents per minute with our prepaid T-mobile phone. She told us where she lived, and we walked there. There is one room empty tonight in their 14 people shared apartment, and she talked with the person who lived there and she agreed to let us stay there. It is good that it was not too far away.

That is what i have said, you never know what your life will bring you. Just enjoy every moment of it. This adventure showed us a totally new way of living at Delft. It is like the student dorm, 14 rooms with a shared kitchen and shared toilet. They seemed to be all college kids, mostly white guys. We saw three girls when we entered. All guys were in the living room watching TV with beer, talking and laughing. They are really handsome boys! I like to see dutch boys in their early twenties. Other than this, the dorm was in a mess: bags and piles of stuff were everywhere in the corridor. I was thirsty and asked for water. Dishes were piling up high in the sink. I got a cup which looked quite dirty and i have to wash it.

Hecker, the German girl who is an exchange student showed us the room she just emptied, and also provided us a sleeping bag. We got a single bed for this night, with matress but no bed sheet. We lied down with all the clothes on. Every where is the smell of cigerates. Downstairs the music was loud until very late, and there were mosquitoes making noise near my head... anyway, this is still better than staying outside, it was only in low 50s.

The next morning, Mr. Awaara went up and left for the office at 8:00am. I went to knock our host's door at 9am, the housing office should be open. She got up and did her normal cleaning up, had her breakfast. During the time she got ready, I took some pictures of the apartment. Mr. Awaara told me that there was a very sexy poster in the men's toilet, but I missed it.

Then our host borrowed the bike from the German girl and went to the housing office. I walked back home and waited for her. It was not long waiting, and I soon went inside the apartment. She took the key and left. I felt i was all over smelly and took a shower and changed all clothes. Mr. Awaara stayed smelly until later that day. Now both of us remember, when we try to close the door, we need to make sure that the key is in our pockets. It is really a big adventure, and I am quite satisfied with the experience we had. I will later post picture stored in our cellphone camera.

1 comment:

Orange is the color of the Dutch Royal Family. The lineage of the current dynasty -- the House of Oranje-Nassau -- dates back to Willem van Oranje (William of Orange). But while the color orange has royal roots in the Netherlands, today it symbolizes a broader pride in the country and in being Dutch.We (Mr. and Mrs. Awaara) moved here in June, 2007 and first lived in Oranjastraat. Here it starts our journey in this orange country.